Search for the Buried Bomber

CHAPTER 5





The Cave



The entirety of the engineering corps was dispatched to carpet the area. We asked to be included in the search, but the colonel firmly refused without any explanation. We became rather spoiled at camp, sitting around all day, excitedly or nervously guessing at what was to come, waiting for news from the forest. A discovery was made on the twelfth day. A unit of engineering corpsmen located a long-abandoned roadway on a mountain five kilometers from camp. After following it another three kilometers, they uncovered a large tectonic cave covered in cracks and fissures. The mouth of the cave had been concealed beneath a canvas sheet hidden under a layer of fallen leaves. The soldiers had only found the cave when they stepped on top of the canvas. The opening yawned ninety feet wide and appeared to be a vertical drop for at least the initial eighty to ninety feet, though the engineering corpsmen weren't carrying the right equipment to explore too deeply.

At noon the colonel made an announcement: we would set out the day after next. He asked us to make the appropriate preparations. This pushed most of us to the peak of anticipation, but our nervousness intensified as well. Caves are some of the world's most hazardous locations. We were used to exploring them, but that made us only more aware of their danger. The chatter that had filled our days screeched to a halt. With each of us attending to his own responsibilities, the whole camp soon took on an orderly, professional atmosphere.

As the days passed, I felt an increasing admiration for Old Cat. Although I seemed to notice a trace of anger in his eyes, despite the excitement all around, he just carried on in the same brazen and rather shameless way, with that slight smirk playing across his lips, as if he didn't care about anything at all. While everyone else was bustling about in preparation for the expedition, he stood apart, watching us from the cabin steps and barely lifting a finger. He always seemed to know something that I didn't, and there was nothing favorable in his expression as he watched us.

Every generation is typified by a certain kind of person, and so it was with Old Cat: he characterized the times that he lived in. In the early days of the war, this old guard was privy to many things no one should ever have to see. They learned the truths that lie below the surface of our world, truths that they found themselves powerless to change. Perceptive and clever, a guy like Old Cat took pleasure in being aware while everyone else went around in a daze. He delighted in his hard-won knowledge and would never deign to rouse you from your stupor. Of course, all of these reflections were made many years later. At the time I was curious about Old Cat, like an adolescent around some rock star. I wanted only to get closer, hoping to somehow become just like him.

That night I made up my mind to ask Old Cat what he was thinking. At first he just laughed at me and said nothing, but after I handed over some cigarettes, he softened. He smoked a few, then told me that this thing we were doing, there was something wrong about it. First of all, he said, that cave had definitely been discovered before we arrived, otherwise they would never have transferred so many people here so urgently. After being in the area for such a long time, could they really have only discovered it just now? Second, he was sure that there were branching paths in the depths of the cave, otherwise they wouldn't need so many men. He didn't know what sort of tricks the leaders of the 723 Project were playing, but whatever they were, they weren't telling us. It was all extremely strange, he said, especially the plane hidden underground—that was simply too much. The situation gave him a bad feeling. After he finished he gave me a pat on the back and, looking right at me, told me that whatever came next, I'd better be extremely careful.

I didn't say anything, but his suspicion made me think less of him. He was overthinking the situation, I told myself. Of course there was nothing simple about what was happening, otherwise they wouldn't have needed so many men and so much equipment. Even if they didn't tell us everything, I figured those in charge had reasons for concealing this information. I didn't think too much about it. We took the next day to rest, reorganize, and hold target practice. Then, on the third day, we joined up with a large contingent of engineering corpsmen and set off for the saddle ridge, me with a smile on my face.

We didn't have any pack animals—just one dog—so we had to proceed on foot, each man with a heavy load on his back. The cave was supposed to be a full day's hike from camp. At some point along the way, I realized Old Cat wasn't with us. Some of my comrades told me the old bandit had claimed to be running a high fever. I could feel my stomach drop into my boots. He hadn't been joking. Knowing he'd intentionally avoided going, the air around me suddenly seemed darker.

Still, it was better marching along than bouncing around in the back of a truck. Each of us had a rifle strapped to his back. Wang Sichuan told me this meant we were near the Mongolian border and not near the Soviets. The Soviet snipers might pick you off long-range if they saw that you had a gun. Our forces rarely carried arms near their border. But there were lots of roving bandits near Mongolia. You needed a gun for self-protection.

I dearly wanted to get a better idea of where exactly we were, but we stuck to the lower ridges that straddled the gaps between mountains and there was never a view. The built-up layers of fallen leaves beneath us turned the ground to fetid swamp. With each step our feet came up covered in swollen masses of muck that belched black water. And with so many people, someone was always falling over and making us stop. We labored onward, our conversations dead and left behind. My thoughts of scenery withered. By the end, I had only the strength to keep my eyes on the back of the man in front of me.

We finally reached the cave on the afternoon of the second day. Immediately I realized Old Cat had been right: there was no way this cave had been found just two days before. Several tents had been erected and piles of knotted rope were strewn all about— two weeks wouldn't have been enough time to transport this much equipment. The others didn't seem to notice anything wrong. Honestly, had I not spoken with Old Cat, I wouldn't have paid attention to these details either.

Great trees blocked out the sun, and the ground was covered in bushes. The mouth of the cave opened to the sky just behind the massive, horizontal trunk of a dead tree. From some unknown source, long roots extended into the opening and climbed down its throat. This was a textbook example of a tectonic cave—a giant tear in the mountainside—not some common mountain cavern. Standing next to the opening, all we could see was a steep drop-off into pitch-black. The wind came whistling softly out of the pit. It was impossible to tell how deep it went. Where the sunlight fell upon the steep cave walls, it illuminated a host of ferns and lichen clinging to the rock. The opening chute seemed to be horn shaped, the emptiness below appearing even larger than the cave mouth. Engineering corpsmen had already placed a net over the opening. At its side was a system of pulleys hooked to a diesel engine that was now lowering basket after basket of army-green cloth bags into the hole. Evidently people were already inside.

The colonel told us the engineering corps had completed an initial exploration of the cave: The vertical drop continued for 642 feet. At its bottom ran an underground river. We would navigate it in inflated oxskin rafts. About two hundred feet down the river, the path branched in four directions. We'd have to divide into groups.

I could feel the sweat running down my brow and Old Cat's words tugging at my heart—everything that son of a bitch had said was coming true.